Timko Once Was Mayor-for-the-day

March 13, 1988|by TIM REEVES, The Morning Call

Few will remember that Bethlehem Township's Albert Timko was once, for a very brief time, the mayor of Allentown.

It was April 28, 1954, to be exact. Ten seniors from Allentown Central Catholic took over the government of Allentown for a day. Timko, then a 17- year-old football standout, was elected mayor by his classmates.

While classmates said they did not guess it at the time, it was the beginning of a long and generally distinguished career in politics for Timko - a career that officially crash-landed Wednesday when the former township commissioner and manager pleaded no contest to three corruption charges.

Timko, according to a review of Morning Call files, held political offices in Bethlehem Township from 1960 to 1985, first as a member of the township Municipal Authority.

After two terms as township auditor, Timko was elected in 1965 to the township's Board of Commissioners, where he would serve nearly two decades. For most of his years on the board, Timko was its president.

Timko was active in the community as well. In 1970, he was namedYoung Man of the Year by the Bethlehem Jaycees - the first recipient of the award from outside the city.

Timko in 1971 was named a group leader in the Greater Bethlehem Area United Fund campaign, predecessor to the United Way. In February 1976, Timko was named chairman of the Bethlehem Area Bicentennial Committee.

In 1983, Timko's job as a senior sales assistant with Bethlehem Steel Corp. was eliminated by the corporation's cost-cutting managers. In 1984, he became the township's first full-time manager.

Timko resigned as township manager in 1985, after a series of Morning Call reports outlined apparent improprieties in the township's government.

Timko subsequently was identified by prosecutors as the central figure in Bethlehem Township's widespread corruption, a man who used township money illegally to profit his family and friends.

The 51-year-old Timko pleaded no contest Wednesday to three felony corruption charges, and faces a maximum sentence of 21 years in prison.

Richard Kolowitz, recently retired from Mack Trucks, remembered the day he, Timko and eight other students - including another who found a career in public life, former Allentown police officer and current District Justice John Dugan - took over Allentown's government for a day.

Timko was elected mayor by his classmates. Four other students were elected to the City Council. Another student was elected treasurer, and Dugan was elected controller.

As mayor, Timko appointed the police and fire chiefs. He named Kolowitz police chief.

"The reason he appointed me, I think, was I had done most of the campaign work," Kolowitz recalled. "I worked in a print shop part time after school. I was for the Democrats, and I made a big deal out of it. I made signs, 'Al Timko for Mayor.'